Just answering the second question now. Still have to think about the other one. I think culturally it would make a significant difference in terms of how thought and language effect each other. Or as a species. They would shape and limit each other in those circumstances.Like today I was reading how the Chinese people's loyalty to their country was reinforced by their non-phonetic character symbol type language. Because you can't build a word according to just the sound as meaning has a major role to play in how the individual characters are shaped. Sometimes entire ideas are just one character. The Chinese could have social mobility through knowledge of the language because they had Central Service examinations like the IAS in ancient times based on prowess in Mandarin. Therefore, learning to read and write was about reading Chinese texts with Chinese values and it drew them closer together in their collective Chinese culture and ideas. However, individual differences are part of who we are. Just like the everyone's brain topography (can't get the right word) is different,everyone's usage of language and thought process is different.
I don't think language is the only cognitive process that is social. It can be called the most social but only that. With the way our mind works, making attributions about why people say/think/feel and what they are going to (the same holds true for our understanding of all events and objects), that we seem to forget that we're the only people in our heads and possibly, our lives. Yes, we live each day surrounded by people but we only see/hear/think/feel what WE do not anyone else. Like Daniel Gilbert said, and I'm probably misquoting, my yellow is not your yellow. And if a basic visual sensation is so different for each one of us, it holds everything else suspect. The next time you talk to someone, actually stop and take note of what the person says (now, hallucinations and delusions are case in point that even that could have serious 'errors'), you'll notice that even the way you both use the same word has different connotations. Of course, these are subtle and are based on the permutations and combinations of individual experiences that each of you have had. See the problem? I'm not even sure if you're reading exactly what I think I'm writing at that. But like Derrida(?) said, the author is dead, and once something leaves my mouth or at the moment, my finger tips, the ball is in your court. You take it forward and interpret it in your unique way, and then it's back to me and so on. That is the social aspect of language. I hope this rant of sorts makes sense
Quite interesting posts Apranta, Appriciate it. This is a difficult and a very thoughful question that you have brought up. Adding to your post, Language comes across in two forms structure and content. The structure of language is uniform for the world. The qualia is different. If this is so then how are we able to show compassion, how are we able to show empathy?. The word "BLOOD" might mean differnt for a butcher than for a surgeon. but both are capable of bring in the same felt expereinces.
That's exactly what I want to say. The qualia as you put it is different. When I'm feeling compassion and you are feeling it, it is different. What we both agree on is that in that specific situation, that basic feeling is to be called compassion. I have a very different perspective on why I'm feeling compassion and so do you. Possibly the actual affective or even biological component might be different. Studies must be done. This whole phenomenon cslled language evolved because it was useful and adaptive and having a consensus is adaptive. For survival and also, to an extent, to just put a full stop somewhere and say that this is what it is and now we build further. So we agree that what you're feeling and what I'm feeling if I hear about the gangrape in Delhi is outrage, now what do we do. But it doesn't change the fact that my experience of that outrage is very different from your in terms of cognition, affect, behaviour, biology, etc. because I have a different idea about reality from you. So, in essence, we need that sort of consensus for humankind to exist but it doesn't change the fact that it is consensus and we live inside our own heads and wearing someone else's shoes is going to be pretty hard since you haven't got any other feet except yours. Sorry for the really bad metaphor there.
Oh, that eternal conundrum that we've been talking about for days. I actually think your metaphor is quite apt. Perfect, if you think about it. Because the shoe (the experience) could be someone else's (or exactly the same as someone else's) but if our feet (perception based of course, as you said, on the permutations and combinations of our thoughts and experiences)are different, then the way we fit into the shoe or the parts of the shoe that our feet feel (to use the metaphor as much as possible :P) WILL be different.
From an evolutionary perspective, it seems, we evolved from matter, gained consciousness, then developed language and finally values. When exactly could thought have developed in between this?
People with dementia first lose their values, then their language and then their consciousness, and finally in death, once again become matter. Surely, they lose thought only with their consciousness... does this suggest that thought came before language?
Thought and values seem to be intimately linked. We think with values.
What seems to be value free knowledge at a certain period of time, is bound to change. Values keep changing, and they determine what knowledge society has.
In a weird way, this is the question that gets to me. The only way I can make sense of it right now is to link the two with emotion. Now, emotion or its initial form, I would like to think evolved first, maybe even before consciousness, with the ability to feel pain and pleasure that every creature has. So, when the organism could think as well, this sense of what gives pleasure and what gives pain would have an evaluative context, which (I think) as the social nature of his relationships expanded became more and more specific. The evaluative nature of these, in terms of whether a things is liked and may be allowed to exist or not, on the other hand become more generalised and probably evolved into values.
I don't think any kind of knowledge is value free. Everything, even a name, has some kind of value because it exists and something else doesn't in its place. However, some things have more value attached than others. Knowledge changes as the contexts within which it is acquired and deemed knowledge (e.g., social, political and cultural worlds) change. Its content, the methods to find it accurately and how it is evaluated change. There are essential dichotomies that the concept of values engages in. I think somewhere these have remained similar across human existence. What is attributed to either side, of course, changes. For example, the pure-impure dichotomy has changed from the Victorian days where even showing ankle was considered fast and immoral. So, using the same argument, I don't think the essential nature of values has changed since the Homo Sapiens became the supposed top dogs of the world, but what 'physical' structures they control have. Knowledge has been one of the oldest players in that game. Once upon a time, the scriptures were the holy truth (I'm not sure if I intend the pun) and now science is the altar we worship at. The power and control aspect of values, thus, clearly determine what knowledge society espouses.
Does music involve semantics and grammar like speech production?
People with Wernicke’s aphasia are unable to comprehend speech, but are able to recognize music that they have heard earlier… does this suggest that music and speech are separate?
First of all, I think it's important to consider what we mean by speech. Is it language? If so, we're asking if music follows the same laws as language.
Well, you have to consider then, what defines a language. Structure? Music certainly has that. Even seemingly unstructured music can be broken down into its composite notes and reproduced. Alphabets or phonemes? What are musical notes, if not that? But Symbolism. That key characteristic of language is what I think music lacks. Sure language has its own subjective interpretations in different people's minds, but, music has no structured symbolism.
For example, the word 'table' represents an object with certain characteristics, namely four legs and a flat top. There are of course variations in tables but the word (that would otherwise be meaningless) derives meaning from the object that it is a symbol of.
Take another example, one not as concrete. The word 'Anger' is a symbol for the concept of a particular emotion. Given, there are variations in the manifestations of the emotion but there is a certain element of universality in that the word conveys a relatively similar understanding of the concept to different people. (I hope I'm not getting confusing, it is very difficult to talk about language without the explanans containing the explanandum - language)
The understanding of a sentence even - 'The ball is red' is composed of its many elements - each of which represent an idea and together convey something that is universally understood. So, consider that while people may picture minutely varying shades of red and perhaps different sizes of the ball, all of them will understand one common thing from this sentence, that the ball is red. Not that the ball is yellow, not that the ball s deflated, not that there is a dinosaur, etc.
My point is that while I see a very many commonalities between language and music, I feel like music lack the crucial element of relatively universal symbolism. Music, while it may have meaning for people - deep emotional meanings at that - each of its components does not stand for something else. Each component cannot be said to represent an idea, as in the case of language.
I think that for some people the ball might be a dinosaur too or a vase (e.g., a person with visual hallucinations or just taking the whole Matrix analogy further how do you know otherwise? The world is full of examples of masses and masses of people agreeing on the same exact thing but being horribly 'wrong'). But that aside, most would imagine a red ball (with infinite differences in size and design). However, while not everyone will imagine the same tune when asked to imagine a happy tune but if they've heard it then they would hardly confuse Chopin with Shania Twain. Like I've argued earlier, words just like music whole different complex meanings for each of us, depending on our experiences as an individual. Of course, it makes more sense that these match the most when when we're using language because that is what it is supposed to do for us to communicate with each other. Music, on the other hand, has a completely different function(One, that I can't seem to figure out right now.) Therefore, the question of structured symbolism is not the question I would ask to understand the difference between the two. Mind you, that doesn't mean I'm any closer to any answer either.
Or maybe that is the question to ask but just saying that due to their difference in function, they are different doesn't really seem to explain more than just that.
Interesting point you make. But, I'd still like to consider that perhaps the structured symbolism assigned to words in a language doesn't have a right and wrong - it's simply a meaning you assign to a word. It's got it's boundaries in regional or cultural ones but the fact remains that a specific meaning is assigned. Music on the other hand cannot be broken down into MEANINGFUL components. By which I mean that while as a whole Chopin may hold a certain meaning to someone (mind you, I'm not convinced of any level of universality in those meanings) each note may not. Whereas each word symbolizes something in language.
Language is composed of wholly new 'symbols' (even an alphabet, for example) that are used to represent something else.
On a different note, I'd like to question if the very definition of language does not inherently contain it's function. If so, then the fact that music and language have different functions may itself disqualify music from being called a language. Meaning, therefore, (going back to the original question) that music (which isn't language) and speech (which is) do not have the same laws, and are therefore different.
I think my stand right now would be exactly the last point you made. It sort of brings that stream of thought to close. For now, that is. Of course, it leads to so many other questions:P
Language, as a tool of communication, involves both input and output. Output may be either writing or speaking, while input may be reading or listening.
As children, we learn to speak our mother tongues without ever learning to read and write the language, purely by listening. How is this possible?
Deaf and dumb people are able to read and write perfectly well. They have never had any auditory input.
Does this mean spoken and written communication are separate?
Sometimes, a few words, written or spoken, have the power to change our moods, emotions, and communicate so much more than what is said. Why and how does this happen?
Sassure's concepts of the "signifier" and "signified" might provide an explanation.
Language is the only cognitive process which is social. What are the implications of this statement?
ReplyDeletePeople might use the same language to think, yet they communicate so very differently. What then, is the relationship between thought and language?
Just answering the second question now. Still have to think about the other one.
ReplyDeleteI think culturally it would make a significant difference in terms of how thought and language effect each other. Or as a species. They would shape and limit each other in those circumstances.Like today I was reading how the Chinese people's loyalty to their country was reinforced by their non-phonetic character symbol type language. Because you can't build a word according to just the sound as meaning has a major role to play in how the individual characters are shaped. Sometimes entire ideas are just one character. The Chinese could have social mobility through knowledge of the language because they had Central Service examinations like the IAS in ancient times based on prowess in Mandarin. Therefore, learning to read and write was about reading Chinese texts with Chinese values and it drew them closer together in their collective Chinese culture and ideas.
However, individual differences are part of who we are. Just like the everyone's brain topography (can't get the right word) is different,everyone's usage of language and thought process is different.
I don't think language is the only cognitive process that is social. It can be called the most social but only that. With the way our mind works, making attributions about why people say/think/feel and what they are going to (the same holds true for our understanding of all events and objects), that we seem to forget that we're the only people in our heads and possibly, our lives. Yes, we live each day surrounded by people but we only see/hear/think/feel what WE do not anyone else. Like Daniel Gilbert said, and I'm probably misquoting, my yellow is not your yellow. And if a basic visual sensation is so different for each one of us, it holds everything else suspect. The next time you talk to someone, actually stop and take note of what the person says (now, hallucinations and delusions are case in point that even that could have serious 'errors'), you'll notice that even the way you both use the same word has different connotations. Of course, these are subtle and are based on the permutations and combinations of individual experiences that each of you have had. See the problem?
DeleteI'm not even sure if you're reading exactly what I think I'm writing at that. But like Derrida(?) said, the author is dead, and once something leaves my mouth or at the moment, my finger tips, the ball is in your court. You take it forward and interpret it in your unique way, and then it's back to me and so on. That is the social aspect of language.
I hope this rant of sorts makes sense
It was Barthes, who said that the author is dead. Sorry. Just remembered.
DeleteQuite interesting posts Apranta, Appriciate it. This is a difficult and a very thoughful question that you have brought up. Adding to your post, Language comes across in two forms structure and content. The structure of language is uniform for the world. The qualia is different. If this is so then how are we able to show compassion, how are we able to show empathy?. The word "BLOOD" might mean differnt for a butcher than for a surgeon. but both are capable of bring in the same felt expereinces.
DeleteThat's exactly what I want to say. The qualia as you put it is different. When I'm feeling compassion and you are feeling it, it is different. What we both agree on is that in that specific situation, that basic feeling is to be called compassion. I have a very different perspective on why I'm feeling compassion and so do you. Possibly the actual affective or even biological component might be different. Studies must be done.
DeleteThis whole phenomenon cslled language evolved because it was useful and adaptive and having a consensus is adaptive. For survival and also, to an extent, to just put a full stop somewhere and say that this is what it is and now we build further. So we agree that what you're feeling and what I'm feeling if I hear about the gangrape in Delhi is outrage, now what do we do. But it doesn't change the fact that my experience of that outrage is very different from your in terms of cognition, affect, behaviour, biology, etc. because I have a different idea about reality from you.
So, in essence, we need that sort of consensus for humankind to exist but it doesn't change the fact that it is consensus and we live inside our own heads and wearing someone else's shoes is going to be pretty hard since you haven't got any other feet except yours. Sorry for the really bad metaphor there.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOh, that eternal conundrum that we've been talking about for days. I actually think your metaphor is quite apt. Perfect, if you think about it. Because the shoe (the experience) could be someone else's (or exactly the same as someone else's) but if our feet (perception based of course, as you said, on the permutations and combinations of our thoughts and experiences)are different, then the way we fit into the shoe or the parts of the shoe that our feet feel (to use the metaphor as much as possible :P) WILL be different.
DeleteWhat came first? language or thought?
ReplyDeleteFrom an evolutionary perspective, it seems, we evolved from matter, gained consciousness, then developed language and finally values. When exactly could thought have developed in between this?
People with dementia first lose their values, then their language and then their consciousness, and finally in death, once again become matter. Surely, they lose thought only with their consciousness... does this suggest that thought came before language?
What is the link between thought and values?
ReplyDeleteThought and values seem to be intimately linked. We think with values.
What seems to be value free knowledge at a certain period of time, is bound to change. Values keep changing, and they determine what knowledge society has.
Do you agree or have different views?
In a weird way, this is the question that gets to me. The only way I can make sense of it right now is to link the two with emotion. Now, emotion or its initial form, I would like to think evolved first, maybe even before consciousness, with the ability to feel pain and pleasure that every creature has. So, when the organism could think as well, this sense of what gives pleasure and what gives pain would have an evaluative context, which (I think) as the social nature of his relationships expanded became more and more specific. The evaluative nature of these, in terms of whether a things is liked and may be allowed to exist or not, on the other hand become more generalised and probably evolved into values.
DeleteI don't think any kind of knowledge is value free. Everything, even a name, has some kind of value because it exists and something else doesn't in its place. However, some things have more value attached than others. Knowledge changes as the contexts within which it is acquired and deemed knowledge (e.g., social, political and cultural worlds) change. Its content, the methods to find it accurately and how it is evaluated change.
There are essential dichotomies that the concept of values engages in. I think somewhere these have remained similar across human existence. What is attributed to either side, of course, changes. For example, the pure-impure dichotomy has changed from the Victorian days where even showing ankle was considered fast and immoral.
So, using the same argument, I don't think the essential nature of values has changed since the Homo Sapiens became the supposed top dogs of the world, but what 'physical' structures they control have. Knowledge has been one of the oldest players in that game. Once upon a time, the scriptures were the holy truth (I'm not sure if I intend the pun) and now science is the altar we worship at. The power and control aspect of values, thus, clearly determine what knowledge society espouses.
What is the link between values and knowledge?
ReplyDeleteHow did abuse come into language?
What is the difference between speech and music?
ReplyDeleteDoes music involve semantics and grammar like speech production?
People with Wernicke’s aphasia are unable to comprehend speech, but are able to recognize music that they have heard earlier… does this suggest that music and speech are separate?
First of all, I think it's important to consider what we mean by speech. Is it language? If so, we're asking if music follows the same laws as language.
DeleteWell, you have to consider then, what defines a language.
Structure? Music certainly has that. Even seemingly unstructured music can be broken down into its composite notes and reproduced.
Alphabets or phonemes? What are musical notes, if not that?
But Symbolism. That key characteristic of language is what I think music lacks. Sure language has its own subjective interpretations in different people's minds, but, music has no structured symbolism.
For example, the word 'table' represents an object with certain characteristics, namely four legs and a flat top. There are of course variations in tables but the word (that would otherwise be meaningless) derives meaning from the object that it is a symbol of.
Take another example, one not as concrete. The word 'Anger' is a symbol for the concept of a particular emotion. Given, there are variations in the manifestations of the emotion but there is a certain element of universality in that the word conveys a relatively similar understanding of the concept to different people.
(I hope I'm not getting confusing, it is very difficult to talk about language without the explanans containing the explanandum - language)
The understanding of a sentence even - 'The ball is red' is composed of its many elements - each of which represent an idea and together convey something that is universally understood. So, consider that while people may picture minutely varying shades of red and perhaps different sizes of the ball, all of them will understand one common thing from this sentence, that the ball is red. Not that the ball is yellow, not that the ball s deflated, not that there is a dinosaur, etc.
My point is that while I see a very many commonalities between language and music, I feel like music lack the crucial element of relatively universal symbolism. Music, while it may have meaning for people - deep emotional meanings at that - each of its components does not stand for something else. Each component cannot be said to represent an idea, as in the case of language.
I think that for some people the ball might be a dinosaur too or a vase (e.g., a person with visual hallucinations or just taking the whole Matrix analogy further how do you know otherwise? The world is full of examples of masses and masses of people agreeing on the same exact thing but being horribly 'wrong').
DeleteBut that aside, most would imagine a red ball (with infinite differences in size and design). However, while not everyone will imagine the same tune when asked to imagine a happy tune but if they've heard it then they would hardly confuse Chopin with Shania Twain. Like I've argued earlier, words just like music whole different complex meanings for each of us, depending on our experiences as an individual. Of course, it makes more sense that these match the most when when we're using language because that is what it is supposed to do for us to communicate with each other. Music, on the other hand, has a completely different function(One, that I can't seem to figure out right now.) Therefore, the question of structured symbolism is not the question I would ask to understand the difference between the two. Mind you, that doesn't mean I'm any closer to any answer either.
Or maybe that is the question to ask but just saying that due to their difference in function, they are different doesn't really seem to explain more than just that.
DeleteInteresting point you make. But, I'd still like to consider that perhaps the structured symbolism assigned to words in a language doesn't have a right and wrong - it's simply a meaning you assign to a word. It's got it's boundaries in regional or cultural ones but the fact remains that a specific meaning is assigned.
DeleteMusic on the other hand cannot be broken down into MEANINGFUL components. By which I mean that while as a whole Chopin may hold a certain meaning to someone (mind you, I'm not convinced of any level of universality in those meanings) each note may not. Whereas each word symbolizes something in language.
Language is composed of wholly new 'symbols' (even an alphabet, for example) that are used to represent something else.
On a different note, I'd like to question if the very definition of language does not inherently contain it's function. If so, then the fact that music and language have different functions may itself disqualify music from being called a language. Meaning, therefore, (going back to the original question) that music (which isn't language) and speech (which is) do not have the same laws, and are therefore different.
I think my stand right now would be exactly the last point you made. It sort of brings that stream of thought to close. For now, that is.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it leads to so many other questions:P
Language, as a tool of communication, involves both input and output. Output may be either writing or speaking, while input may be reading or listening.
ReplyDeleteAs children, we learn to speak our mother tongues without ever learning to read and write the language, purely by listening. How is this possible?
Deaf and dumb people are able to read and write perfectly well. They have never had any auditory input.
Does this mean spoken and written communication are separate?
Sometimes, a few words, written or spoken, have the power to change our moods, emotions, and communicate so much more than what is said. Why and how does this happen?
ReplyDeleteSassure's concepts of the "signifier" and "signified" might provide an explanation.
What implications does this have for Discourse?
Why did humans develop constructivist and minimalist thinking?
ReplyDeleteAre they complementary or separate paradigms?